Stealth Marketing - A Multi-Part Briefing - Part 2

Updated: June 24, 2010

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Our friend William Shakespeare was very poetic, but did not have a clue about branding. Your brand name is the first and most important element in your marketing communications program. Building brand is about burning your company's unique and positive attributes into the mind of your customers. Selecting a company name that reflects your firm's unique value, and is memorable, will aid in your long-term success.

Naming Trends: Founder's Name, Generic, Made Up, Evocative…

A Business 2.0 article titled "The New Science of Naming" provided a timeline of naming trends over the past century. Yet a review of these trends shows very little "science" and a great deal of ego, art, and at times desperation in company naming. (The name "Accenture" is often cited as an example of desperation.)

While a well-chosen company name will by no means determine the success of your company, a poorly chosen company name can have a very negative affect.

Naming approaches have changed over time. Names have moved from straightforward descriptions to words used out of context to quirky made up words and back again.

In the pre-Internet days, a brand always had a visual component: Coke has the shape of the bottle and the stylized writing; McDonald's has golden arches. In the Internet-era, the brand name alone without a visual component must carry the entire responsibility for being the key "memory tag."

Naming Approaches

Founder's Name(s) - popular in the early days of industry, company founder's used their own names: Ford, Kellogg's, Procter & Gamble. Founder's names were also popular in the early days of the computer industry: Hewlett-Packard, Varian and more recently Siebel Systems.

Straight Forward Descriptive Terms/Acronyms - General Motors (GM), International Business Machines (IBM) and Systems Analysis and Program Development (SAP) are all examples of company names that become acronyms with meaning.

Real words used out of context - Apple and Orange are catchy but without a suggestion of the business. This type of name requires marketing work to establish meaning and build the brand. If they are catchy, unique, and well marketed, they are likely to be remembered.

Made up words - Xerox, Google, as with real words used out of context, these made up words require significant marketing to build meaning in the minds of customers. The longer and harder your name is to spell, the more marketing effort will be required to build name awareness.

Generic Common Noun - cars.com, wine.com, pets.com generic common noun names are straight forward, but contain an element of risk. In the US, common noun product names are generally associated with "generic" products, which are recognized as "cheap" products. Overtime, the market has proven that proper nouns, to which people can attribute a brand value, are the names remembered as having value.

Real words suggestive of the business - Jawbone, Oracle, Blackboard and Research In Motion (RIM) are simple names that are intuitive and have real meaning "in the spirit" of what the company does.

The Naming Process

Whether you seek the professional advice of a naming and branding firm, or take the project on internally, the steps will be similar (although the costs could be dramatically different).

1. Marketplace and Competitive Research - define market opportunities, understand the business context of target customers and evaluate competitors.

2. Develop your "Unique Value Proposition" for your target customer. What is the "promise" your company strives to make that differentiates it from its competition? Identify your core values, personality and identity.

3. Creative Brainstorming - pull together your team to review your unique value proposition and get creative. In brainstorming, every idea is a good idea (as it may lead to another better idea). This exercise is often most successful with the addition of popcorn and beer.

Consider the following elements while brainstorming your company name:

Unique and memorable - Hotmail, Yahoo, Yelp, Boo.com. The latter was one of the biggest flops in Europe's dot.com history, but failure was not due to the name - which will be long remembered - but due to Boo.com being unable to deliver on its promises.

Suggestive - A word or words suggestive of a category without being generic.

Pronounceable - Word-of-mouth is the most effective publicity, be sure people can say your name, and in multiple languages.

Easy to spell - In the Internet era your website is one of your most powerful tools, so customers must be able to find it.

Appropriate for you target customers - Blue Martini, for example, would not work as a children's website.

Cross-cultural - think about a global name. The old story of the US auto manufacturer that introduced a car called the "Nova" into Mexico, not realizing that in Spanish Nova means "no go," is a perfect example of the potential problem.

4. Make a short list of the best name ideas and see which ones meet the key requirements:

5. Test the names that make your short list with your target market audience, advisors, employees, friends and family.

6. Select your name.

7. Own your name.

Once you have chosen a great name, start the ownership process. You'll likely be investing a great deal of time and money in promoting your name and do not want to have to change it after you have created good will and market awareness.

Register your domain name (preferably a ".com") in every country where you plan to do business. In addition to registering your name with your own local domain, you may want to consider other domains .de, .fr, .uk, .com, .ne. You may also want to register name variations that are close to your name. The International Trademark Association has useful information and links on worldwide trademark issues.

Sign up for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn accounts. You won't use them YET, but you might need them as you grow.

The best company names are:

Intuitive

Easy to say

Easy to spell

Easy to remember

If you’re currently relying on an outdated video conferencing solution - or if you don’t have one at all - you’re in luck.
While any time is a good time to invest in video conferencing, Q4 may be the best. One big reason is that Q4 is when you can get the best deals, but there are also other important factors like increased access to seasonal employees.
more

Many businesses adopt VoIP to take advantage of the cost savings without spending enough time reviewing the features and benefits made available by different solutions.
If this is true for your business, there’s a good chance you could be getting more from your VoIP system in the form of even lower costs or improved employee productivity. You may even find that your current software offers features that you aren’t taking advantage of! more

Are you considering investing in ERP software for the first time? Or maybe you already have an ERP solution but you’re worried it’s becoming dated.
If either of the above apply to you, read our latest guide on the top ERP features and benefits based on the size of your business. You may be surprised at how versatile and cost-effective it is becoming - regardless of if you own a small business or run a large enterprise.
more

When was the last time you evaluated the performance of your current contact center and the software you are using? The results may be frightening! If it’s been awhile since you invested in contact center software, there is a good chance that your needs have changed or that there are better options available now. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to determine if you need an upgrade or not. more

The wrong phone system could be haunting your business - and we’re talking about problems more serious than ghosts and ghouls. From increased costs to issues with scaling, we’ve identified seven important ways that a less than ideal phone system could be holding you back. You’ll be surprised at how much of a difference this can make to your bottom line too.
more